Ever dreamt about travelling the world but reality is a 9-5 job and a mortgage to pay?
What if we said you can do both?
Meet Vicki, the former Lawyer with an instagram profile that will make anyone envious. Vicki walked away from a comfy salary to inspire others to make the most of their time outside the normal 9-5.
In this interview, Vicki shares the incredible story behind “MakeTimeToSeeTheWorld” alongside her top tips on combining a full-time job with a life full of adventure.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m Vicki, a medical negligence lawyer who created MakeTimeToSeeTheWorld to document my travel adventures alongside my regular 9-5 (although if any lawyers out there are actually working those hours – good for them!). Over the past 10 years I have visited 160+ cities in 48 countries and I am determined to keep my country count above my age.
My style of travel has always been to get the best out of a destination as a time poor traveler making the most of my limited vacation days and all without breaking the bank.
I am lucky enough that my success with my site now allow me to run it on a full time basis, but I continue to focus on part-time travel for busy people and over 100,000 visitors a month look to me for guidance on where to save and where to splurge to ensure they have the most amazing travel experiences in whatever time they have.
Do you remember the day you decided to leave your job to travel?
I have never left a job to travel. When I decided to take the site full time, I walked away from being a lawyer to focus on turning MakeTimeToSeeTheWorld into a business. It just so happens that that business includes a lot of travel!
Do you miss anything about your old life?
A consistent income! Being self-employed and building an online business can be tough. Not knowing how much income you will get each month is a huge contrast to the cushy lawyer salary I once enjoyed. But it does make me hustle harder to make sure that I make ends meet!
What inspired you to start blogging your travels?
Initially I created “MakeTimeToSeeTheWorld” as a personal site to document my travel adventures alongside my regular 9-5. As the site grew it became apparent there was a gap in the market and that people were interested in knowing how to make the most of their limited vacation time whilst working full time instead of the ‘quit your job and sell all of your stuff’ philosophy that a lot of travel blogs talk about.
Where would be your forever place?
I really like living in Melbourne (Australia) right now, but I enjoyed living in the UK, USA, France, Switzerland & Austria before that. I don’t think I could say with certainty that I will stay in Melbourne forever, but at the moment it’s where I want to be.
Funniest travel memory…
There are so many it’s hard to have just one favorite – and to be honest, most of them you would really have to have been there! I do have a post my Africa Outtakes featuring me climbing up a wall sideways in Zimbabwe and crashing head over heels whilst riding a shopping trolley through a car park in South Africa, which I have been told is quite amusing though!
Worst travel experience…
On my first RTW trip I planned to visit South America, New Zealand, Fiji, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand with a 3 month stop in Australia in the middle as I had a couple of weddings to attend and friends to catch up with. I had my whole life in a very large and impractical suitcase and was raring to go but when we arrived at the airport our flight had been cancelled due to snow and they couldn’t get us to Rio De Janeiro until 18 hours after we were meant to arrive. It also meant that I lost my pre-booked window seat and ended up being flown to Paris to catch an alternate flight where we found ourselves at the back of a double decker plane in the middle of a 4-4-4 configuration with no inflight entertainment and no drinks. To cap things off, when we finally arrived, our suitcases had not made it and my partner at the time thought traveling without luggage was liberating (which irritated me to no end) and in an effort to cheer ourselves up we went down to Copacabana beach where we were robbed. Luckily the trip did get better, but it was definitely the worst start ever!
3 things you can’t travel without…
Laptop (for blogging/editing and watching TV!), Sony a6000 Camera – compact and discrete and packs a punch; and a light pashmina that can double as a shawl or headwrap depending on where in the world I am.
Favourite adventure activities…
Skiing and Scuba Diving
Vicki’s top 3 tips on combining a full-time job with travel…
1. Be organised, planning in advance will help you to maximise your time when traveling;
2. At the start of the year work out when all of your national holiday fall and see if it is possible to combine them over longer breaks so you use less annual leave.
3. Where possible, try to arrange a flexible working arrangement with your employer (i.e longer working hours on Monday – Thursday to allow you to have Friday off) or a rolling rota which would give you an extra day off every other week. Arrangements like these will make more long weekends possible without having to sacrifice your full time salary.
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